Souriya Bounthirat fronts court for obtaining and selling ID docs

A cannabis user pocketed more than 12k by selling fraudulently-obtained bank account details to scammers online in order to fund his drug addiction.

Souriya Bounthirat pocketed more than $12,000 selling back account details of unsuspecting people to scammers.

A fraudster who illegally harvested bank account details and supplied them to scammers in exchange for more than $12,000 to fund his cannabis use has been jailed.

Souriya Bounthirat, 31, pleaded guilty in the County Court at Melbourne in September last year to charges relating to unauthorised access to electronic devices and possessing and supplying identification information.

He was sentenced to nine months’ jail when he appeared for sentencing on Wednesday and also ordered to serve an 18 months community corrections order.

The offences were committed during the Covid lockdown between October 2021 and January 2022 as a way to make additional money since Bounthirat was unemployed at the time.

Sourya Bounthirat got paid for selling people’s bank account details to scammers in cryptocurrency.

Judge Peter Lauritsen said Bounthirat either sold or resold information using an application called Telegram and was paid in cryptocurrency, up to $500 at a time but usually received $200 to $300. He onsold the cryptocurrency in Australian dollars and deposited a total of $12,167 into a Bendigo Bank account under his partner’s name.

Police accessed his Oppo mobile phone and found Bounthirat went on the Russian Market website 5707 times between October 2021 and January 2022 and downloaded 638 files. During the same period, he accessed multiple bank login websites about 1973 times to check the validity of the data he had purchased. He also harvested multiple identification documents, email accounts and associated passwords, Commonwealth Bank card names and associated PIN numbers from bank login websites.

Judge Lauritsen said several conversations on Telegram with unknown users showed they inquired about his services and requested logs, identification documents, bank accounts, email, or Medicare access.

Police also found more than 200 username and password login combinations for various websites including VicRoads, MyGov, gaming, PayPal accounts and various social media accounts.

Judge Lauriten said Bounthirat didn’t inquire as to what the potential scammers would do with the supplied information but assumed it would be to steal identities to commit further offences.

Bounthirat’s motivation for the offending was purely financial as he was unemployed during Covid and was unable to obtain government benefits as he was a New Zealand citizen, the judge said.